Coating Getting Stripped During Seating

[GMP]

2 hours ago, Aric said:

Are the bullets vertical in the case before they are seated?  I had an issue where the bullet got gouged on one side during seating.  It was counterintuitive but less bell fixed my problems.  The bullet should fit snuggly and vertically in the case before seating.  It they were loose or leaning I had issues.    

This is one of the points of the expander vs flare.  It provides a stepped dia on the ID that allows the bullet to be placed in the case mouth square and secure by hand.  A flare cannot do this.  

[NETim]

My 0.02.  I'm loading on a Dillon 650 w/Dillon dies.  I do have the powder drop tube from AA installed and have been using it exclusively. 

 

I have loaded coated bullets for quite some time and have been quite happy with them.  Call me a devoted fan of coated bullets.  I've never really had a problem loading them.   (The AA tube does help with seating the bullets IMHO.)

 

I recently decided to try some 122 grain truncated cone coated bullets from ACME.  I had been loading their 124 RN's with no issue.  But some reason, I wanted to see what the TC bullets did.  Don't ask me why.  Apparently I'm not happy with success. 

Before I started loading them, I dutifully swapped the bullet seating stem from the RN profile to the flatter "TC/SWC" profile" in the Dillon seater die. 

 

After setting OAL, I started loading. 

 

Immediately I noticed I was producing crap loads.  Shaving the coating.  Inconsistent OAL.  Unusually high reject rate on the case gauges.  (Both the Dillon single and the Shockbottle "Hundo.")  I played with the belling until the cases were screaming.  Still inconsistent results as above, including coating shaving.

 

I didn't think it was a bullet related problem as I've loaded thousands and thousands and thousands of ACME coated bullets.  Never a problem!!!!  But these were the first TC profile I had loaded.

 

FINALLY I pulled the seating stem back out of the die and played with the bullet on both sides of the seating stem.  It appeared that the flatter profile side of the stem would sometimes catch the tip of the bullet as I wobbled it side to side with my fingers.  The RN profile did not catch the bullet.  Hmmmmmm.... perhaps the bullet was prevented from aligning properly with the case because the tip of the bullet was catching in the seating stem? 

 

Swapped back to the RN profile, set the OAL and I started to produce a consistent quality reload. 

 

I am using mixed range brass and am wet tumbling w/o pins using the Brass Juice stuff. 

 

I will mention that the Brass Juice seems to leave a bit of lube on the cases as they run through the press much more smoothly than the standard Armor-All car wash w/wax and Lemi-shine mix I had been using previously.  It also seems to remove tarnish off of brass as well.